," she
answered with suggestion. "It's worth much less now," she added.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked sharply, sitting upright, his hands
clasping his knees almost violently, his clean-shaven face showing lines
of trouble.

"I mean he's going to join the enemy," she answered quickly.

"Join the enemy!" broke from the old man's lips with a startled accent.

"Yes, the firm of Belloc."

The old man did not speak, but a curious whiteness stole over his face.
"What makes you say that!" he exclaimed, anger in his eyes.

"Well, Fabian has to put money into something," she answered, "and the
only business he knows is lumber business. Don't you think it's natural
he should go to Belloc?"

"Did he ever say so?" asked the old man with savage sullenness. "Tell
me. Did he ever say so?"

The girl shook back her brave head with a laugh. "Of course he never
said so, but I know the way he'll go."

The old man shook his head. "I don't believe it. He's got no love for
Belloc."

The girl felt like saying, "He's got no love for you," but she
refrained. She knew that Fabian had love for his father, but he had
inherited a love for business, and that would overwhelm all other
feelings. She therefore said: "Why don't you get Carnac to come in? He's
got more sense than Fabian--and he isn't married!"

She spoke boldly, for she knew the character of the man. She was only
nineteen. She had always come in and gone out of Grier's house and
office freely and much more since her sister had married Fabian.

A storm gathered between the old man's eyes; his brow knitted. "Carnac's
got brains enough, but he goes monkeying about with pictures and statues
till he's worth naught in the business of life."

"I don't think you understand him," the girl replied. "I've been trying
to understand him for twenty-five years," the other said malevolently.
"He might have been a big man. He might have bossed this business when
I'm gone. It's in him, but he's a fly-away--he's got no sense. The ideas
he's got make me sick. He talks like a damn fool sometimes."

"But if he's a 'damn fool'--is it strange?" She gaily tossed a kiss at
the king of the lumber world. "The difference between you and him is
this: he doesn't care about the things of this world, and you do; but
he's one of the ablest men in Canada. If Fabian won't come back, why not
Carnac?"

"We've never hit it off."

Suddenly he stood up, his face flushed, his hands outthrust themselves